One Shots
by DreamingOfDissent
Summary: Just a few moments that I caught in text for you guys. :D  Rating for possible language
1. Sleep

Integra sighed. God, this had been a long day. And here she was, still doing paperwork at four in the morning. She had been up roughly twenty-two hours when she had only slept three hours out of the past forty-eight. A cigar slowly turned to ash in the heavy glass ashtray at her elbow and her tea grew colder in the porcelain cup. She ignored both as she fought the paperwork before her with a blue ballpoint pen.

Alucard watched her from the shadow cast by the pile of books on her desk. From the looks of the circles beneath her eyes, he would soon be able to hide in their shadow and see what she saw. Something inside of him twinged as her marbled eyelids veiled her icy eyes from his view. She was tired. It had been a long week, and a longer year. There had been nothing more than scattered and weak attacks lately. She was killing herself to find the pattern. He would normally condone this vehement search, but what she failed to see was the fact that no pattern existed. Her head slumped forward a touch more and he could feel her mind slipping from her into the realm of dreams. He melted out of the shadow to form beside her.

"Master?" He said softly. Her head snapped up and her eyes were wild and unfocused.

"What is it?"

"Time for bed. It is late even for me. Now, how are you supposed to control me properly if you cannot even see straight?"

"Don't you dare challenge me, Alucard." She said, relaxing once she realized that the danger was only in her mind.

"Order me not to." He said, scooping her up. She flailed at him in what was meant to be a serious left hook, but her arm ran out of steam before it got halfway to his face. She let her arm fall limp on her stomach.

She sighed, conceding his victory to him. He smiled and carried her to bed, dropping her into the softness unceremoniously and leaving before she could mutter a thank you. He smiled as he heard her pull the blankets around herself. He felt more accomplished in forcing her into the little comfort than he had in killing any number of ghouls and vampires for her. The thought caused him to smile more.

Perhaps he could sneak another blood packet before sunrise, he thought as he heard a soft snore from her bedroom.


	2. Stress Ball

"Walter, what is this?" Integra asked. She had left the room for a moment in search of a rubber band to tie her unruly hair back with as she did papers. When she returned, she found a small rubber balloon on her desk, filled with sand. There were two little cartoon men on it. One seemed rather happy and had his arms outstretched. Beneath him, the words "Hug Me" were written. The other had his arms crossed on his chest and a scowl on his face. He was standing on the words, "Leave Me Alone".

"It appears to be a stress ball." Walter said with a smile. He turned back to the shelves and resumed dusting.

"What is it doing on my desk?"

"It seems to be a gift."

"From who?"

"I would suspect one of the vampires, Sir Integra."

She hefted the small orb in her hand for a minute. Then squeezed it firmly. The characters distorted as the rubber stretched and the sand shifted. She released the tension in her hand and the orb reformed, the characters becoming normal again. She tossed it in the air a time or two, a smile slowly forming on her face.

Alucard smiled from the chair across from her.

"What an amusing choice for stress relief, Master. I know much more effective ways of relieving excess tension if you will but allow it." He said with a smirk.

She tossed it in the air again, quickly figuring the force needed to do what she was contemplating. Alucard raised an eyebrow at her expression. Her thoughts were veiled to him at the moment.

And then the stress ball collided with his nose.

"I think I will keep it." She said evenly, sitting behind her desk as if nothing had happened. Alucard looked to Walter like he had been seriously wounded and all Walter could do was laugh.


	3. Nail Polish

"But Sir!" Seras' voice rang out as Walter walked into the room with Integra's tea tray.

"No way in hell, Officer Victoria." Integra said, "And that is final."

Walter walked to Integra's side and set the tray on her desk. There were various small bottles filled with different colored paints. They looked hauntingly familiar for all of a moment before Walter recognized them. Nail polish.

"What seems to be the problem, Sir Integra?" He asked, watching her glare at her subordinate across the large desk. Seras seemed crushed. Integra was obviously more interested in her tea than answering. A sure sign that someone had crossed that line and was only a matter of seconds from being shot in the skull.

"Sir won't let me paint her nails! And she has such pretty fingernails..." Seras' eyes fell to Integra's hands almost longingly. Walter tried to remember a single time that she had painted her nails and he couldn't think of a single instance that her nails were anything other than natural.

"If I may be so bold, Sir, it isn't as if a French Manicure would kill you, and it would be entirely unnoticeable. It would also placate Officer Victoria here." The last was said quietly and in a tone that said plainly that it was none of Seras' business and she shouldn't listen. She obediently pouted and picked at the label on a bottle of daring red polish dejectedly.

Integra glared at the girl over her cup as Walter left the room quietly.

He returned for the tray later and heard laughter coming from Integra's office. He looked into the open doorway without a sound to see the two women laughing and painting away. Seras' nails were a surprisingly subtle peach that didn't draw much attention and Integra's were currently being covered with another clear coat to protect the white strip at the ends of her perfectly oval fingernails. Walter smiled and went back to the kitchen.

The tea tray could wait.


	4. Cookies and Condolences

Walter was putting away the boxes of sugar and tea after fixing Integra the last cup she would require for the night when she walked into the kitchen. He turned to smile at her after closing the cabinets and noticed a rather desolate expression on her face.

"What seems to be the problem, Sir Integra?" He asked. She said nothing until she had taken a cookie from her 'secret stash' in the pantry and sat at the end of the bar. She finally looked up at him, a tired and vaguely childish look in her eye.

"Officer Victoria said that I acted like an old man." She said, poking at the cookie on the plate before her. Walter smiled to himself. She looked like the little girl he had helped watch over.

"What caused her to say such a thing?" He asked, just a tiny bit of the false outrage coloring his voice. It was enough for her to pick up on, but not enough to feel like he was just coddling her.

"I failed to accurately squeal and giggle in delight when she returned from shopping and tried on everything to show me... And unfortunately, I do mean everything. I had to drag Alucard in to get her to get her regular uniform back on and leave me the hell alone."

Walter bit the inside of his lip to keep from laughing as Integra glared a hole into the cookie before her.

"Well, I must say, Sir, you _were _raised by old men, Alucard included."

"I suppose you are right..." She picked up the cookie and took a delicate bite. Then she pondered the missing crescent for a long moment before asking, "But then what explains her behavior? Was she raised by a pack of overly perky cheerleaders or something equally ludicrous?"

What made Walter laugh the hardest was the fact that Integra sounded entirely serious.

"I am willing to bet that the sparkly demeanor of our newest recruit is simply a factor of her personality." He said, handing Integra another cookie.

She sighed.

"The cheerleader bit could be beaten out of her... I like my explanation better."

Walter smiled.

"Have Alucard tamper with her brain then."

"I'd rather deal with her glittering happiness rather than another sadistic monster."

"So you prefer Officer Victoria to remain the same?"

Integra sighed and took a bite out of her cookie, eyes narrowing as they landed on the edge of her plate. Walter smiled and set a glass of milk beside her plate and left her silently battling with the images of Seras as a serious killer, and the more familiar giggly little ball of undead sunshine. Neither image was pleasing or settling. Integra took another vicious bite out of her cookie and looked for all the world like a pouting six-year-old.


End file.
